Heirs to catastrophe

And the ball continues to roll. For the Fall 2012 semester, The Maneater has decided to host yet another weekly column on environmental issues.

The reason environmental discourse is so crucial, especially at a university beholden to such journalistic notoriety, is because we face a challenge of unprecedented proportions as heirs to our current environmentally-ravaged planet. And perhaps it is only necessary then that, as a first order of business, we address the current state of our environment.

There is no longer any room for debate: Man-made global warming is happening. Concentrations of greenhouse gasses are building up in the atmosphere with the potential to irreversibly damage all life on Earth if we do not act soon. This is not a contested issue – it’s scientific consensus, with 98 percent of the most published climate researchers in agreement, and no scientific body of national or international standing holding a dissenting opinion.

You likely felt the effects this summer, but here are the facts: Sixteen of the last 17 years have been the hottest on record, the first six months of 2012 were the hottest on record and July 2012, in daunting consistence, was the hottest month in recorded history for the contiguous U.S.

And this heat is not just an inconvenience. In July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared more than half of all U.S. counties were experiencing drought severe enough to be considered a natural disaster – the biggest natural disaster in its history.

As a result of the drought, 48 percent of corn crops across the Midwest are in “poor” or “very poor” conditions, plus 37 percent of soybeans, and the prospects for next year’s yield aren't looking much better. What’s more, the USDA reported about two-thirds of land with hay and three-fourths of land with cattle in the U.S. is drought-stricken.

Putting aside the impact this will undoubtedly have on global food prices – not to mention the sparking of some global unrest – the most troubling thing about all this is it’s exactly what climate scientists have been warning us about all along.

So you’d think after realizing the effects of global warming are already upon us, world leaders would be acting not only for their own best interests, but also in the best interests of mankind? If they were to come together for some kind of yearly summit on sustainable development, they could divert our catastrophic course for the future.

Well, the 20th annual embodiment of that took place last month in Rio de Janeiro, in the form of Rio+20. No progress was made — President Obama didn’t even attend. The conservation organization Greenpeace even went as far as to call the outcome a “declaration of war” on the financial sector, which sits on such immense wealth that it could provide unparalleled support in the transition to a green economy, but instead continues to fund the destructive fossil fuel industry.

So, you may be asking yourself, what is there to do, then? What do we do when the state of our planet is rapidly declining, and the executive director of arguably the most active conservation organization in the world declares war on the financial sector we all buy into whether we like it or not?

Well, I’m afraid the answer to that question escapes any one person’s control. That said, I can only speak for myself when I propose the notion that within crises of such great magnitude, such unprecedented magnitude, the amount of progress made will have to correlate appropriately with the amount of social involvement each individual is willing to contribute.

We all must offer our voices to the bullhorn of sustainability at least passively through lifestyle choices. For the more audacious crowd, MU’s student organizations are a great place to start in the search of opportunities to do real, meaningful work and be part of something much greater than yourself.

Because if Rio+20 showed us anything – and I hate to sound so hackneyed and political, but this is a firm belief of mine – it is that our generation will have to be the one to face this challenge. Not just for us, our future generations and our species, but for nature, the Earth and all the life that calls it home.

Originally printed in The Maneater